Perfect
by Rosie Denn
Summary: STYLE in the form of a 'Next to Normal' song. Rated for language.


_So, I can no longer listen to the song 'Perfect for You' from the musical Next to Normal without thinking of one of my current favorite pairings, Stan and Kyle. It just fits them so perfectly in my head. Today, I decided to write out how I felt the sentiments of the song would actually play out in their circumstances. The result is below. I tried to make the scene follow the same progression as the song. I added some extra beats here and there (mostly in the narration), but it was all in the interest of maintaining the overall flow. I did keep some lines intact because they are so brilliant._

_This is pure, indulgent fluff, and I will not apologize for it. XP_

_Enjoy~!_

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><p>Stan was in one of those moods again. The kind where he was being a cynical, pessimistic asshole. He was damn lucky that I knew him well enough to realize that this would pass (eventually). Otherwise, I never would have put up with this shit.<p>

Stan is a great guy, and a motivated activist most of the time, and I really admire him for it. But every so often, he'll get fed up with the world's lack of progress and/or stupidity and go on one of his tirades. Mind you, I don't blame him for this, but it does get hard to listen to after the half-hour mark.

The best thing to do in this circumstance is to just let him get it out of his system. Of course, he didn't need any prompting from me to do so, so I occupied myself with geometry theorems while he prattled on about… I didn't even know what, since I had tuned him out by that point. We were in his room. He was sprawled on his bed, while I had taken up residence at his desk.

'…and the environment's shot to hell,' he went on. 'There's not a single square inch of this planet that hasn't been poisoned by fossil fuels, toxins or nuclear radiation.'

'Uh-huh,' I chimed in. I was actually successfully invested in a particularly challenging proof and didn't even pause in my work.

'Kyle, are you listening to me?' Stan asked.

'Yeah, sure,' I didn't look up, but trusted my superior skills at multi-tasking to provide, what I thought to be, a semi-invested response.

Apparently, my skills were not good enough to fool the guy who had known me since we were in diapers.

'No, you're not,' he argued, 'you're nerding out over your algebra.'

'Geometry,' I retorted, still not missing a beat in my work.

'Kyle, come on, dude.' I was so absorbed, I didn't even hear him get up from the bed, but the next thing I knew, my chair was being swiveled around from the desk, and I was staring straight into the face of my best friend. He was about as close as he could get with his hands planted on the chair's arms and his nose inches from mine.

Well, he had certainly diverted my attention.

'Yes, Stanley, how may I help you?' I joked with a straight face. Just because he had forced me to stop what I was doing did not mean that I was going to indulge his rantings so easily.

Stan gave me a quizzical look. 'You really haven't been paying attention at all, have you?' he asked.

'Yes, I have,' I lied.

'Kyle,' he began. He was still insanely close to me, and his body's position made me feel like I was being held captive in the chair. Then, I saw something tremble in his gaze when he cut it down to my kneecap, still looking at me, but not… _at_ me. 'I'm trying to tell you something important.'

The way he said that made me think I really had missed something in the last five minutes or so. 'Um… yeah, Stan, dude, I know,' I tried to placate him, 'the environment's fucked up, and the government's a bunch of lying pussies, and-'

'I'm trying to tell you, I love you.'

'WHAT?' I shrieked, and ended up flailing around pretty stupidly. On some kind of 'flee' reflex, I pushed my feet against the floor and propelled the chair backward into the desk. The collision ended up toppling all three of us – Stan, the chair, and myself – onto the floor. I was still 'sitting' in the chair, but I was on my side, with Stan draped over the top of me. 'DUDE, WHAT THE HELL?' I screamed from my new horizontal position.

'I'm sorry!' he screamed back, though if he was apologizing for the comment or the resulting physical fiasco, I couldn't tell.

I didn't know what to think of what Stan had just said. It was so completely earth-shattering… and fucking random as shit… that I couldn't even begin to process it. If, in fact, he meant it in the way that I assumed he did. But, he couldn't have, that idea was absurd… wasn't it?

Stan had gotten himself off me by this point, and was trying to help me up. I was so numb that I was still checked out mentally, but I let him pull me up onto my knees. 'I'm sorry,' he repeated, more calmly this time, while letting go of me. 'I've been thinking about this a lot lately, about how broken this world is, and how it all seems pretty fucking pointless sometimes. Especially living in this Goddamn town. Jesus, SO much shit always happens here that a lot of the time I feel like there's no point to it all. I start to think, why keep fighting? Why keep trying to cope with this severely messed up world that's probably dooming us all into extinction any day now?'

I couldn't help it. The absurdity of this whole scenario caused me to blurt out, 'Well, this is certainly history's most optimistic proposal.'

'Shut up and let me finish,' said Stan with an expression that allowed no room for argument. So, I shut up. 'It's true, the world is a shit-hole.' I glared at him a bit. 'But, then,' and here his expression softened into one of almost relief, 'I think about you, and realize that everything actually seems all right, or at least bearable, if you're standing next to me.' I sat there, trying to register Stan's words. It goes without saying that I was sincerely listening to his speech now. 'And it's not just in a super-best-friends way, though that is a big part of it, of course, dude. But, it's also the fact that…'

'What are you saying, Stan?' I asked.

'I'm saying…' he took a hefty sigh before continuing, 'that I realized that I'm perfect for you, Kyle. And you're perfect for me. There's not anyone who knows me better, or is willing to put up with all of my shit, or who I'd rather fucking be with all the time. I want to… try and make the world right for you. Because I know you make this stupid, Goddamn world bearable for me, so I want to be perfect for you. I… I can _make_ myself perfect for you.'

I was flabbergasted. There was no other word for it. This was a ridiculous situation, and it deserved a ridiculous modifier to describe it. I couldn't really deny what Stan was saying. It's true, we were really good as a pair. That's why we had been best friends for most of our lives (fucking duh). But Stan was throwing all of this shit at me at once. Out of the blue. With a fucking retarded lead-in (if you could even call it that). So, now all of a sudden he wanted to be, what, boyfriends? I could admit to myself that I liked Stan. How could I not like my best friend? But, I had never seriously questioned whether I… _liked_ him. Did I? How could I even reasonably process such an important, life-altering question as that under these idiotic and insanely stressful circumstances?

He continued, 'I can press out all the wrinkles, Kyle, and you can mold the clay into something good.' If I didn't know better, I'd say that he was high right now.

I essentially told him as much, 'Ok, now you're babbling, Stan, and you're freaking me out.' I started to get up. I couldn't take this anymore. Stan was being a retarded idiot, and I couldn't begin to sort out how I actually felt about all of this. It was too much. I had to get out.

'Kyle, wait,' Stan pleaded and grabbed both my arms, pulling me back down to face in front of him, though I kept my gaze adverted out of embarrassment. It was remarkably similar to how he'd barricaded me in the chair earlier. 'Kyle, look at me.'

I did. There was such a desperate need in his voice that I couldn't refuse. I looked into his blue eyes. I had seen them countless times in my life, but now I was searching them for something I had never considered before. Some kind of signal, a sign that would lead me to the answer to the question now swirling around inside my head (thanks to Stan, who, I suppose, had been trying to figure out an answer for a while now). I saw my best friend; I saw the boy who I had spent countless hours of my life with, who I had fought with, but also cried with, had laughed at our favorite television show, at one of our friend's stupidity, or at our own stupidity; I saw someone who had protected me from harm on more than one occasion; I saw the person I trusted more than anyone else in the world.

And I saw my own reflection in his eyes.

And that's when I knew I found my answer. I didn't see it coming, but it was far from surprising. I saw myself in Stan. I was already a part of him, a part of his life just as surely as he was already a part of mine. There was no need, as Stan had said, to make ourselves perfect for each other; we already were. We always had been.

That's why, when he spoke next to say with intense conviction, 'Even if the rest of the world is shit…,' I helped him finish '…you're the one thing I can rely on.'

He smiled at that. Then, he tentatively reached up his hands to hold my face, though our mutual gaze never wavered. 'I can't fix what's fucked up. But, I do know that I can be perfect for you, Kyle. Just…'

I began to argue with him, 'You already are…'

So, we ended up saying at the same time, '… perfect.'

And then my best friend, Stan, leaned in and kissed me.

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><p><em>If you like this story, please check out the collaboration fic I am working on with <strong>Jizena<strong>. It's called **The Mysterion Mythos: Cthulhu Fhtagn** and can be found on her page here: .net/s/7086175/1/The_Mysterion_Mythos_Cthulhu_Fhtagn . We're working really hard on it, and it's pretty epic, if I do say so myself! And you never know, there may be some STYLE cropping up there as well~! ;)**  
><strong>_

_**South Park** belongs to Trey Parker and Matt Stone._

_'Perfect for You' from _**Next to Normal**_ lyrics by__ Brian Yorkey._

_If you like the song, please go buy the original from the show album. Or, better yet, buy the whole thing!_


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